Marc Munroe Dion: Welcome to my world, city workers

Sunday

Apr 27, 2014 at 11:00 AM

I look up from my desk, a little to the left and there's a camera. It's watching me, though Lord knows it's not seeing much, just me, in my chair, typing, pausing every now and then for a sip of coffee. Not the stuff of reality television, not even on one of the less particular cable channels.

Marc Munroe Dion

I look up from my desk, a little to the left and there’s a camera. It’s watching me, though Lord knows it’s not seeing much, just me, in my chair, typing, pausing every now and then for a sip of coffee. Not the stuff of reality television, not even on one of the less particular cable channels.

I know the camera is real because I watched them install it some years ago.

Thirty years ago, I was working for the Associated Press in Kansas City, Mo., sitting at a desk much like the one I have now. The only difference was that, in those days, you could smoke in the office. There were cameras in that office, too.

And you, if you’re working in a 7-11, you’re on camera, no? In fact, if you work any kind of retail job, warehouse job, office job, a lot of jobs, there are cameras around and sometimes they’re pointed right at you.

How do you feel?

Fine?

Yeah. Me too.

Ah, but you wouldn’t feel fine if you worked at Government Center, where it’s still 1963 and you can screw off all you want as long as the boss isn’t actually standing at your desk.

The recent installation of cameras at Government Center caused employees to mumble about “morale,” something they last did when former Mayor Robert Correia made ‘em stop listening to ball games on the city’s dime.

Tempest, meet teapot.

I wasn’t too concerned about security cameras in Government Center, not as a worker in the for-profit part of the economy, where they’ve been taping us for a couple of decades now. Things move fast out here in the real world.

And I wasn’t surprised to find out some of the cameras were fake.

A lot of businesses use fake cameras to discourage thieves. This is the same school of crime prevention that encourages people to post a “Beware of Dog” sign on their porch when they, do not, in fact, own a dog.

The fake camera, the “beware of dog” sign, even some of those signs that say, “This Property Protected By Fictitious Security, Inc.” All that stuff is there to discourage dim-witted sneak thieves, rowdy teens and junkies looking for a cheap opportunity.

Ah, but at Government Center, where it’s always 1963 and all employment is meant to be lifetime, any kind of camera causes real outrage, an emotion reflected by a city council that seems so tired lately.

Rego, by the way, is swiftly emerging as the Leo Pelletier of the next generation, a man whose language is to the point, even if it sometimes sounds more like the barroom than the boardroom.

I don’t give advice to mayors because mayors don’t take advice, at least not from me.

But I’ll tell Will Flanagan one thing, and that’s to quit screwing around with the professionals. Screwing around with the professionals, on camera or off, can get you de-elected.

In Fall River, you can anger the parents, but you can’t anger the teachers. You can ignore people in bad neighborhoods, but you can’t ignore the cops. You can ignore unemployment, but don’t ask the Fire Department to take a pay cut. You can sling cameras and “ShotSpotters” from every telephone pole on Pleasant Street, but don’t even THREATEN to tape the clerks in the office of weights and measures.

Increasingly, the professionals live somewhere else, but they still need that Fall River city paycheck and its accompanying sick time, vacation time and ability to retire before you hit 60.

That city paycheck money comes from side street three-decker simpletons like you and me, people who live in Fall River because we still believe in the city. I’d be happy if the city had a real, working camera pointed at the sidewalk in front of my house. Hell, I wouldn’t say no to a fake camera.

As for the professionals, keep picketing, keep refusing to budge an inch, keep neighing about cameras and “intimidation.”

Then, call the head of any municipal union in Detroit and ask how things are going.